The impact of critical water levels on container inland waterway transport

This paper disentangles the impact of critical water levels on container cargo transported along the Rhine River. It analyzes monthly throughput and all instances where navigability was constrained due to low or high water levels between 2000 and 2022, employing a time series econometric model. The study considers water level conditions at critical locations between economic centers while controlling for confounding effects. Our findings reveal an average monthly impact of -0.2% per day of disruption and -5.9% when the disruption remained for more than 24 days. Notably, vulnerability to critical conditions has doubled since 2018 and exhibits spatial variation. The most pronounced disturbances and their lagged effects are associated with localized low water level incidents. We show that enhancing the resilience of inland waterways to climate change is essential to avert potential losses in container throughput, estimated to range between 7% and 20% annual average by 2050.